Looking ahead

Senior moment

November 18: Who's the leader of the club that's made for people age 80? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E. Eight decades after Walt Disney debuted Mickey Mouse in his first talkie cartoon, the famous anthropomorph is still one of the world's most easily recognized characters. Mickey starred in his first synchronized sound cartoon, "Steamboat Willie" on this day 80 years ago.

44th anniversary of JFK assassination

November 22: An X marks the spot on Elm Street in Dallas where President John F. Kennedy was gunned down by Lee Harvey Oswald from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Every year since, crowds form in Dealey Plaza to stand on the white-painted X that marks where Oswald's bullet struck President Kennedy, and conspiracy theorists pack the Grassy Knoll to pitch their favorite second gunman stories.

Consumer Confidence Index released

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November 25: Despite a $700 billion federal bailout of the financial industry, consumer confidence reached an all-time low point in the study of consumer optimism that began in 1967. Economists and investors will be watching this month's numbers closely to gauge whether the economic misery of October will give way to a brighter November or signal further descent into economic pessimism.

Thanksgiving

November 27: It wasn't always celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. The Continental Congress issued its first Thanksgiving Day proclamation for Dec. 18, 1777. The purpose: "That at one Time and with one Voice, the good People may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincere Acknowledgments and Offerings, they may join the penitent Confession of their manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and earnest Supplication that it may please GOD through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him ­graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole."

Buy nothing day

November 28: Talk about high expectations: Even in a beleaguered economy, everybody knows the day after Thanksgiving is about finding deals and pre-Christmas sales at the local mall. But hand it to a few consumer and environmental groups that founded the annual Buy Nothing Day in hopes of protesting what they call the relentless commercialization of the holiday season. Even in hard times, however, they operate one lonely crusade.